


With my heart in my hands

by DeathStarryNight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Loneliness, Maz is the best, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo Relationship in development, Slow Burn, supportive leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-21 21:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17650052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathStarryNight/pseuds/DeathStarryNight
Summary: "With my heart in my handsI am ready againI am a broken man, I am"Six months after the Battle of Crait, the Force won't stop pushing Rey and Ben Solo together.  Rey is still with the Resistance but finds it harder and harder to stay every day.  Ben has everything he had ever wanted except the most important thing of all.  As the anger and betrayal subside, they have to figure out where to go from here and how to fix what they've done.  And, perhaps, find something new along the way.





	1. "We're all damned to the hell of living"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All chapter titles are from the song The Only Fire by Motherfolk because I just can't get this song out of my head for Rey and Ben. First time writing anything close to canon at all. Leave comments and let me know what you think!
> 
> Completed so should be updated daily (I hope).

**Part One: Ben**

The Supreme Leader stepped into his chambers with a swish of his long black cloak.  The door hissed shut behind him with a soft _clang_ and left him alone.  Completely, utterly alone.  He detached his black cape from his shoulders and left it to lie over a nearby chair and proceeded to shed the thick clothing he used to guard himself so diligently piece by piece.  Finally, he stood in the center of his room in just a thin tunic and soft pants.  They made him feel too vulnerable. 

He wondered then, as he did every night now, how he had let things get this way.  Just months ago, he’d almost held everything he could ever want in his hands.  He supposed, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, that he _did_ have everything he had once wanted.  His achievements fell stunningly short.  How his perspective had shifted.

He had _almost_ freed himself.  He had _almost_ said the right things.  She had _almost_ taken his hand.  The word _almost_ haunted his every waking and sleeping moment.  It echoed after him as his boots clanked down the hallway.  It chased him even into his dreams.  In the face of all his _almosts,_ his reality felt painfully inadequate.  Every fiber of his being told him that things could be so much different, so much better, if he hadn’t gone and ruined them.

Ben Solo sat down on his bed with a huff and caught his head in his hands.  Six months since the Battle of Crait.  Six months since he had become Supreme Leader.  Six months since he had almost destroyed the Resistance.  Six months since she had closed the door of the Falcon on him again.  He had replayed that scene in his mind over an over again: the disappointment in her face, the shattering of his composure.  He couldn’t pretend her absence didn’t crush him in a way he hadn’t known before, as if someone had dangled hope in front of him only to wrench it away.

He had the galaxy in his grasp, thousands at his beck and call, yet it would never be even close to enough for him.  Without her. 

Six months and every force bond that opened between them had been shut tight by her as soon as it opened.  She had never even let him get a word in.  Not that he deserved to.  He understood why she shut him out. 

But he didn’t know how much longer he could take it.

 

**Part Two: Rey**

Rey unloaded the last of the crates from the Falcon and nodded to Finn as he trotted off to jump in the ‘fresher for the first time in a week.  They had gone on a routine mission to resupply some of the base and had ended up hiding out on a dusty planet for three days after a First Order ship landed there.  How the Falcon had gone unnoticed, she still didn’t know.

As she descended the gangplank again, she noticed a small knot of recruits clustered on the other side of the crates, frantically whispering to each other.  Finally, one of them worked up the nerve and approached her, knotting her hands.  The others hung back and watched with keen eyes.

“Did you really take an escape pod to the main First Order ship?” she blurted.

Rey felt her shoulders slouch at the question.  It was not the first time someone had asked her.  “Yes, I did,” she answered.

“What was it like?”

“Metallic,” she said bluntly and turned on her heel. 

A small pang twitched her heart as she walked away from the baffled recruits.  It wasn’t really their fault.  She couldn’t blame them all for asking, for probing her for details of her trip to the _Supremacy_ or about the new Supreme Leader or exactly what happened in the throne room that day.  But she didn’t want to talk about it. 

No one knew what had really happened in the throne room except her and – as far as she knew – Kylo Ren.  Despite them asking many times after Crait, she had told no one.  Not Finn, when he’d pressed her in the quiet of lightspeed.  Not Rose, who had gotten the courage enough to ask after several months of friendship.  Not even Leia.  At first, she hadn’t meant to keep it from everyone, but how could she tell them that Kylo Ren had killed Snoke for her, fought the Praetorians back-to-back with her and then taken the throne himself?

They all had assumed that she had somehow managed to kill Snoke herself and – she didn’t really know from there – outwitted Kylo Ren or something.  If they had known about the Praetorians, she was sure they would think she had killed them on top of it all.

That and her display at the Battle of Crait, lifting a mountainside full of boulders and flying off from under the nose of the First Order with all that was left of the Resistance, had made her something of a legend.  A living legend.  Even Poe and Finn stared at her with something like awe when she practiced using the Force or wielding the lightsaber she’d repaired.  They couldn’t practice sparring with her anymore.  It didn’t help her improve.

Rooms fell silent when she entered.  Even her friends’ conversations grew stiff and careful when she sat near them.  Only a few people could be assigned to her crews because all others stared too much and made her uncomfortable.  People stopped to let her go in line first in the mess hall.  She had stopped going at all.  No one had told her a joke in months.  She confined herself to her room for days when she was stationed on base between missions.  She fixed the Falcon alone.

The rebels had grown up with stories about the Jedi and Luke Skywalker and the twins who had saved the galaxy.  But Luke had died after the Battle of Crait.  Leia walked like a general and bore a familiar face.  And Rey was the last Jedi.

She remembered often what Maz had said to her lifetimes ago on that vibrant, green planet.  _The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead._

Rey had thought she’d meant the Resistance.  But she had never felt so alone.


	2. Who gives a damn about my rest?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben consider their situations.

**Part One: Ben**

He had redone the throne room shortly after taking up the mantle as Supreme Leader.  He had debated for a while whether it was strictly necessary.  He didn’t think he had the same flair for dramatics as Snoke, who had spent nearly every waking hour in the throne room.  That habit had made him detached from the rest of the First Order.  Ben preferred to wander throughout the ship and check on operations.

But he had decided that he needed a throne room for official business.  And so, he had reconstructed the old one, which had taken significant damage with the rest of the ship.  The first thing to go was all that red nonsense.  It reminded him of blood and fire and Crait.  Instead, enormous windows covered three of the walls from floor to ceiling and opened out to the depths of space.

Ben stood at those windows, gazing out over the blanket of stars that studded the night.  They passed by a hazy, purple planet far below, but he barely glanced at it.  If he had a moment to spare from the business of running a galaxy, he liked to look out at the startling expanse of the universe around him.  Sometimes, in his weakest moments, he wondered where the Resistance had settled.  Not to destroy them, but just to know where they were.  That they were safe.

He imagined Rey in too many scenarios to count: farming on a fertile but desolate outer-rim planet, traveling from system to system in the galaxy aboard the Falcon, maybe on an old Resistance base hidden deep in some jungle.  He tried to imagine himself there too, how he would fit in with her: helping her fix the Falcon, sharing meals beside her in the mess hall, flying as her copilot.  But he knew that all of these daydreams were as false as the mask he’d once worn.  He would never fit in where she was.  He could not.

One day, he thought, perhaps he would search for her.  But he knew that too was a lie.  He could not search for her without revealing the location of the Resistance to the entire First Order.  And he would have no excuse to protect them then.

No, he would run his empire and try to curb some of the worst impulses of his officers and forget her, forget what he’d felt when their hands touched.  With any luck, the Resistance would sit quietly in the outer-rim and he would not have to wrestle with it any longer.

“Supreme Leader,” a voice said from behind him.  He turned to see a junior officer, a little pale in his presence but with an unshaken voice.  “General Hux asks to speak with you, sir.”

He sighed.  Even though he never got more than five minutes to himself, he had never felt so alone.

 

**Part Two: Rey**

She finished tightening a bolt on the Falcon and ignored the spot of oil that dripped onto her jumpsuit.  Footsteps passed by her spot beneath the ship, but they did not stop to talk, and she hoped they wouldn’t notice her feet poking out from beneath the hull.  Working on the Falcon was her only moment of peace.  No one could stare at her there or ask her again what had happened on the _Supremacy_ or make stilted small talk with her.  Beneath the Falcon, she could forget that she had become the hero of the Resistance, the keeper of the sacred Jedi texts and the last of the order.  She could forget that she was anyone other than Rey.

“Rey?” someone called from outside the ship.  She cursed and passed it off by dropping her wrench, which clattered loudly on the duracrete floor.  “Oh, sorry, are you alright?”

She rolled herself out from beneath the ship to see Connix staring down at her curiously.  “Yeah, sorry, just kind of in my own world under there.”

She nodded in understanding.  “Leia’s asking to see you.”

“Right,” Rey said and wiped her greasy hands on her jumpsuit, staining it further.  She was sure to get an earful from the laundry bots, although how they thought she would keep a jumpsuit clean was beyond her.  “I’ll be right there.”

Connix nodded.  “I don’t think it’s anything urgent.”

Rey took her time packing up her tools and tying the top half of her jumpsuit around her waist to look a little more presentable in command.  A quarter of an hour later, she knocked on the General’s office door.  It opened, and a junior staffer almost collided with her as he exited with an armful of files.  Leia waved her inside and indicated a chair without even turning around.

“Right, Rey,” she said and spun around holding a datapad.  But she finally looked up and stopped whatever she had planned to say with a frown.  She set the datapad aside.  “Are you alright?”

“Of course,” Rey said at once with a tight smile.  “Sorry, I’ve been working on the Falcon.  I’m a little sweaty.”

Leia scrutinized her.  “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”  In truth, she hadn’t.  Dreams and nightmares had kept her awake for several successive nights.  She had chosen her tasks on the Falcon to wear herself out in hopes of sleeping that night.  “And Poe said he hasn’t seen you at meals in a while.”

Rey looked away from her piercing eyes and shuffled her feet.  “I’ve been eating.”

“But not in the mess,” Leia pressed.  “Are you overworked?”  Rey shook her head quickly.  “Then, why are you taking your meals alone?”

Rey knotted her hands together.  “People stare when I go to the mess,” she muttered finally.  She looked up to find Leia’s sympathetic eyes on her.  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she added.

The general nodded in understanding.  “Responsibilities can be a lot to take on.  I know this must be a difficult transition for you.”  Rey opened her mouth to say _I’m fine_ , but Leia cut her off.  “I think you should take some time to yourself.  Get away for a week, maybe two.  Meditate, reconnect with the Force, recenter.”

Rey blinked at her.  “It’s a waste of resources.”

“No,” Leia said gently.  “It’s not.  Most of my rebels can get the rest they need here.  If they are exhausted, I keep them on base for a while.  You, though…I don’t think you can get the rest you need here.”  She gave her a soft, almost motherly smile.  “Take the Falcon.  There’s a Resistance safehouse a system over.  It’ll be a short trip.  Stay there for as long as you need.”

“I…”  She scrambled to catch up with what she’d heard.  “Are you sure?  Didn’t you need to talk with me about something?”

Leia shut off the datapad, as if to punctuate her statement.  “It can wait.”

And so, Rey found herself with a few weeks’ worth of resources boarding the Falcon for a destination she knew nothing about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I appreciate the comments and kudos so far. I am trying my best to respond to comments in a timely manner, so keep them coming :)


	3. "So I left you knocking at the door"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben reconnect for the first time.

**Part One: Rey**

The safehouse Leia had mentioned was an odd type of cabin built into the side of a mountain, not a soul to be seen for miles around.  The trees provided enough cover for the Falcon to land and park unseen.  The cabin had everything she could want except fresh food, which she’d brought herself.  It even had running water.  She felt invisible here and isolated and…alone.  But it was a good kind of alone, like she had made the choice to be by herself rather than pressed into it.  It felt nice to not have to force conversation with her friends or scattered rebels.

For the first time in months, Rey took a deep breath.

Freedom.  It felt like freedom. 

The first day she arrived, she went for a run through the woods along the worn track of an old trail near the cabin.  She took a long shower in the ‘fresher and didn’t worry about anyone else who needed to use the stall.  She cooked some food on the stove in the two-room cabin.  She put her things away in the drawer as if she would really stay for a couple of weeks.

As the sun sank towards the horizon, Rey stepped out onto the smooth stone that served as a sort of porch for the cabin and sat.  She had closed herself off from the Force for months, afraid of reconnecting with Kylo Ren again.  Now that the cabin had afforded her some breathing room, she realized that her detachment from the Force may have been the very thing causing her restless nights.  There, in the quiet solitude of the mountain cabin, it called out to her like a friend.

And Rey answered.

She let the Force flow through her again as it hadn’t in more than two months.  The mountain came alive beneath her.  She felt the decay of the creatures who had died in its embrace, the roots of the plants that fed off those nutrients, the flight of the birds, the earthworms deep beneath the surface.  She felt the cold of the stream and the heat of the sun on the leaves.  It sung in her head and formed a melody in perfect harmony.  Balance.

She felt too, with utter certainty, that it would rain later that night.  She felt the friction in the storm clouds beginning to gather overhead. 

The Force wrapped her back in its embrace like she had never strayed.  For the first time in two months, the tension in her spine released.

And Rey felt it the moment the Force shifted, and her ears popped.

 

**Part Two: Ben**

At first, he couldn’t believe it.  The figure that sat before him, her back to him in the center of his room, hadn’t appeared there for months.  He remembered vividly the last time the Force had connected them. 

“ _I hate you_ ,” she had snarled at his back.  “ _You’ve ruined everything._ ”  And before he could turn around, she’d vanished, snapped the bond between them shut.  It hadn’t reopened in more than two months.  He supposed that she had ensured that.  In fact, he had not felt any tremors through the Force at all.

But she sat in the center of his chambers, her gray-clothed back turned to him.  She’d remained there for more than a minute without moving or saying anything.  Perhaps she intended to focus and shut him out again like she had done all of those other times.

“This is why I didn’t want to reconnect with the Force,” she said finally with an air of disappointment.  Curiosity sparked inside him.  Was that why they had gone so long without a Force connection?  She had cut herself off from the Force?  He circled around her carefully and found her eyes closed, as if she were meditating.  Deep purple circles had formed beneath them.

“Perhaps the Force is connecting us for a reason,” he muttered.

Her eyes snapped open and looked on him for the first time in months.  He watched her scan him from head to toe.  _Rey_ , he thought.  Her hazel eyes bore into his. 

“I thought that once,” she said in return.  “I was wrong.”

“Were you?” he asked.  Her gaze held a sense of finality.  Because she believed their story over.  She had reached out to him, and he had failed her.  _Has she given up on me yet?_ he wondered.  Without taking her eyes off him, she nodded.  “Maybe you’re wrong,” he said.

“You always think I’m wrong,” Rey said.  And then she was gone.

Ben was left to wonder if she’d cut the connection or if it had timed out on its own.  He resigned himself to another two months without her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who is following this little story and commenting! I plan to have comments answered tonight, but it may have to wait until tomorrow, but I promise I will answer!


	4. "And I'll leave the divine to better men than I"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why did you do it?" she asked finally. "Why did you kill Snoke?"

**Part One: Rey**

She gave up meditating after her encounter with Kylo Ren.  It replaced the calm she had felt before with an unsettled frustration.  She’d been too exhausted to be angry with him, although the bitter words she had last spoken to him rang in her ears.  It wasn’t his words that frustrated her either.  She had opened her eyes to find him looking down at her, deep purple circles beneath his eyes and a weary look that told her he hadn’t been sleeping well either.

Rey knew she shouldn’t care whether the Supreme Leader slept well.  In fact, she should hope that he did not and would therefore wreak less havoc on the universe.  But something struck her when she opened her eyes to see him there for the first time in months.  Recognition.  His weariness mirrored hers.  And that made her, if not sympathetic, at least curious.

Not that she _wanted_ the connection to open again.  Every time he appeared in front of her, something empty and painful yawned open in her chest.  She felt acutely that he had ripped something out of her.  But the same feeling settled in her chest as when she’d shipped herself to the _Supremacy_.  There were answers to be found if she was brave enough to look for them.

When the connection opened again the next morning as she meditated – because the Force seemed determined to link them – she did not attempt to close it off. 

The atmosphere shifted, and her ears popped.  She felt his looming presence acutely at her back.  She knew if she turned, he would be there.  Still, Rey waited for a whole minute to give him the chance to close the bond and turn his back on whatever still lingered between them.  He did not.

“Why did you do it?” she asked finally.

His surprise rippled across the Force to her.  “Do what?”

“Why did you kill Snoke?” she clarified, her back still turned to him, although she could sense every move as if he stood in front of her.

He remained silent for a long moment.  “I thought you would know,” he muttered.

Rey turned at that and found him seated in a simple tunic and pants.  She had never seen him dressed in anything other than his outrageous black uniform.  The simplicity of it shocked the question out of her.  “Were you sleeping?”

“It is night,” he answered tersely.  “I was in bed.  I can’t say I was sleeping per say.”  He seemed annoyed with the direction their conversation had taken. 

She accepted that with too much understanding and returned the answer that had made her turn to face him in the first place.  How was she supposed to know why he had killed Snoke?  “I don’t know why you killed him,” she answered simply.  She shook her head.  “I’ve tried to figure it out, but I just can’t.”

Ben opened and shut his mouth several times before he answered.  “It was him or you.”

Rey didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t that.  Her mouth dropped open a little before she recovered her composure.  “You killed him…no, you became Supreme Leader.”

His mouth tightened.  “You asked a question, I gave you an answer.”

“But…for _me?_ ” she asked.  “Why?”

He looked away, but Rey did not.  She had not expected the direction of this conversation, but she was not going to desert it now that they had finally gotten somewhere.  She didn’t quite know where yet. 

“And for me too,” he said instead of answering her question.  “I couldn’t live under his thumb anymore.”

“Then, why didn’t you leave?” she asked the final, painful question. 

“I asked you to join me,” the words were wrenched from him.

“That’s not the same as leaving.”

 

**Part Two: Ben**

Ben stared down at where she sat again in the middle of his chambers.  He had not expected to see her again so soon, nevertheless in the middle of the night.  On top of that, she had initiated conversation.  But he didn’t know how to answer her questions.  He had been vulnerable with her once before and that had ended with a broken lightsaber and an empty throne room. 

“That’s not the same as leaving.”  The earnestness in her eyes gave way to sadness.  He wondered if it had been as difficult to hear him ask her to join him as it had been for him to let her go.

“No,” he said at last.  “I suppose it’s not.  But I would have built a new empire for you.”

At first, she didn’t answer, and he thought that he had said the wrong thing again and she would close the connection.  She did not, but it was clear that the idea of a new empire didn’t move her in the least.  “I don’t want an empire, new or old.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted an empire anymore either.  The power had not been as satisfying as he had thought it would be.  The throne felt too empty and just _wrong_ without her.  He remembered the battle with the praetorian guards.  They had moved effortlessly, flawlessly.  Back to back, they had protected each other.  She had given him her lightsaber.  And all he had thought was that he wanted that all the time.  He wanted her at his side.

“What do you want then?” he asked.  “For me to join the Resistance?” 

Rey looked at him for a moment, her brow furrowed, as if puzzling out whether he really wanted to know.  He kept his eyes trained on hers to prove that he meant what he said and waited for her to answer.  “I don’t know,” she said finally and looked down to where her fingers had laced themselves together in her lap.

Her answer surprised him.  Ben had always thought that she wanted him to join the Resistance and return home, embrace his mother and become Ben Solo again.  Wishful thinking.  He didn’t think that Ben Solo existed anymore, no matter how deep he reached to find him. 

“What do you want, Rey?” he asked her again.

Her lips tightened, and he felt suddenly like an intruder on a private moment that he shouldn’t be witnessing.  “Something new.”

And she was gone.  Ben stared at the place where she had just sat and turned her admission over in his mind.

_Something new_.  Not the Resistance.  Not the old Ben Solo she had never met.  _Something new._

But what?


	5. "Then that fear became a cancer"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Would you mourn for me?"

**Part One: Ben**

The Force always seemed to find him in his chambers.  Both Luke and Snoke had taught him from the start that the Force had no feelings, no motives.  It took no sides and played no favorites.  It sought balance and nothing more.  Luke had told him this to illustrate the importance of balance in the Force.  Snoke wanted him to use the Force as a tool.  Ben had always thought both men too simplistic.

Since the connection had opened between him and Rey, he had begun to question many things, chief among them the nature of the Force.  If the Force had no motives and no goals outside of balance, why did it draw him and Rey together with such intensity?  No matter how many times they closed the bond between them, it always seemed to open again.  Lately, he could only be grateful it hadn’t opened in the middle of an important meeting.  Wherever she was, her times of meditation seemed to coincide with his evenings and nights or early mornings, when he remained in the peace and quiet of his chambers.

He could feel the connection open, the slight shift in the atmosphere.  His ears popped.  It still surprised him to see her in his chambers, most often seated in the center of his room.  This time, she faced him, her hands resting on her knees like she’d been meditating again.

She sighed heavily and moved her hands to rest on the ground instead of her knees, opened her eyes.  “I see I can’t meditate in peace anymore.”

“I didn’t open the connection,” he said in his defense, even though he wasn’t sure of that.  He had been thinking of her but had made no effort to reach her through the Force.  But whether it responded to his thoughts or happened on its own, he still didn’t know.

“I wasn’t blaming you,” she answered, her hazel eyes steady on his.  “You look tired.”

He bristled at that.  He’d been hearing that comment from the few people around him that were brave enough to say such a thing as well.  “Since when do my sleeping habits matter to you?”

He winced inwardly a little at the petulant snap of his voice and turned away from her to hide his shame, searching for the rest of his uniform.  The gloves sat on his desk, across the room and behind her.  He had no desire to get close enough to her to walk past.

“Yes, I imagine the trials of being Supreme Leader cannot be easy,” she mocked.  “You’re so important now.  That must not leave much time for sleep.”

Ben shut his eyes against her voice fired at his back.  They had descended back to this so quickly, after the vulnerability left in the air from their last connection.  And he had started it.  No wonder they couldn’t have a civil conversation.

But she continued, “I haven’t been sleeping well either.”

He supposed he could have chosen to ignore her and continue getting ready, but he turned and sat down on the edge of his bed instead.  “Why not?”

Rey shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Maybe because I was disconnected from the Force.”

“You have a lot of time to meditate.  I thought they’d send you all across the galaxy.”  He didn’t know what he was saying anymore.  “Or are you meditating in lightspeed?”

Her lips twitched.  “Trying to get information out of me already?  Piss poor attempt.”

He looked down at his hands.  He’d been fishing for information on her life in the Resistance, not on their location.  That hadn’t gone as planned.  “When the Force didn’t connect us for months,” he started slowly.  She went very still.  “I thought something might have happened to the Resistance.  To you.”

The thought had lurched him from sleep almost every night, bathed in sweat.  He imagined a thousand possibilities: Hux had located the Resistance and sent a squadron to destroy them to taunt him, or they had stumbled on a hostile planet and been slaughtered by natives.  Maybe it had been simpler than that: they had run out of fuel in the vacuum of space and starved.  His fault.  Perhaps he would never find out what had happened at all and would be left wondering how her bright flame had guttered out, where she’d gone.

That had been the worst thought of all.  She would vanish into the depths of space and he would never know.

He looked back up and met her hazel eyes, watching him as if she could read those fears on his face.

**Part Two: Rey**

She didn’t know what to make of his confession.  A small pang of guilt stabbed at her chest.  She had shut him out for her own comfort and he had…what?  Worried about her?  She almost shook her head at the thought.  Kylo Ren didn’t worry about anyone, especially not a nobody from Jakku who had rejected him.

But he had wondered.  And the slope of his shoulders, the look on his face, was haunted.  She couldn’t understand why it would matter if she and the Resistance were lost forever.  Wouldn’t he rejoice?

“Did you mourn for me?” she asked.

His dark eyes snapped to hers for a long moment before he answered.  “No.”  She hated the pang of disappointment in her chest.  “I didn’t believe you were dead,” he continued.  “I think I would have felt that through the Force.”

Her voice was soft and thick when she spoke again.  “And if I had died?  Would you mourn for me?”

Something that she couldn’t place rumbled through the Force.  She felt the tremor in her bones.  “Yes,” he said.

The connection snapped closed, and she was left staring at the bare rock where he’d been sitting just seconds before.  An unspoken question hung in the air.

_Would you mourn for me?_ she had asked him, but she could almost hear him ask it too, in his deep, quiet voice.

She answered even though there was no one left to hear it.  “Yes.”

_Yes_.

She felt the galaxy between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today, I know, but they'll be getting longer from here on out. Thank you for all the comments and kudos! They make my day!


	6. "I feel like I've been sinking"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why couldn't you leave?" The broken question left her lips without her say.

**Part One: Rey**

Six days into her stay on this planet, whose name she did not even know, and she decided that it bore one single advantage over life on the rebel base: no one disturbed her.  Her sheer relief at being left alone for a while sustained her for the first five days of her stay.  By day six, she began to contemplate an early return to base.  Why had she thought that staying on a remote planet with no one else for miles around would make her feel less lonely?

She had even begun to dread her near-daily connections with Kylo Ren again.  They had gotten somewhere, she was sure of it, but now the conversations made her feel even more lonely.  Or rather, they made her feel less lonely, which in turn made her feel more alone.  What did it say about her that the only person who understood her was a mass murderer ruling the galaxy?  Why did she feel like she could open up to him but not to any of her friends?

Rey tossed and turned in the small bed provided for her in the safehouse.  She thought about trading it for the one in the living quarters of the Falcon, but what was the point?  She didn’t think her lack of sleep had anything to do with her comfort or lack thereof. 

Her ears popped.  She flipped over onto her back and sighed.

“The connection doesn’t usually open at this time of day,” he said from a chair on the other side of the room.

“Leave me alone,” she snapped and rolled over until her back faced him.  Silence hung in the room and somehow made it even _less_ comfortable for her.  She looked over her shoulder and saw that he not only still sat in the chair but watched her with a wide-eyed expression.  “What?”

“I, uh – well,” he cleared his throat.  She didn’t think she’d ever seen him at such a loss for words.  “You’re in my bed,” he finally choked out.

“Oh.”  That would explain the choking.  She sat up and looked down at the worn covers that were still very much her bed in the safehouse.  “Well, I wish it were more comfortable.”

The barest of smiles flickered over his face.  “Can’t sleep?”  She shook her head.  “Well, the bed on the Falcon never was very comfortable.”

“It would be better than this,” she muttered and didn’t care that she had revealed something about her whereabouts. 

“The Resistance base?” he asked.  After a moment’s hesitation, she shook her head.  “Did you leave the Resistance?”

“No,” she snapped, sitting up again to punch her pillow into submission.  “I didn’t _leave_ the Resistance.  I’m not like _you_.”  She felt the sting of hurt radiate through the Force as that barb hit its mark.  She continued to punch her pillow more than was strictly necessary.  “I’m not like you.”

“No,” he said finally.  “You’re not.”

Rey slumped back against the pillow again, defeated.  No matter how much she tried to deny it, there was a part of her that was indeed like him.  Kylo Ren knew that – of that she was sure.  But he had not chosen to use it against her.  Grudgingly, she turned to face him.  He sat on the wobbly wooden chair across the room from her, his hands clasped lightly and his elbows balancing on his knees.  His dark eyes regarded her without hesitation.  He looked almost…relaxed. 

“Why couldn’t you leave?”  The broken question left her lips without her say.  It embarrassed her that she found tears pricking the corners of her eyes. 

He broke their shared gaze then and looked down at his joined hands.  “I can’t go back to the Resistance, Rey,” he said.  “They would never accept me.”

“That’s not what I asked,” she said.

His shoulders slumped.  “I would have.  I was prepared to.  But…” He paused.  “I had nothing waiting for me outside the First Order.  Nothing to go back to.”

She heard his unspoken words as if they hung in the air between them.  _I asked you to join me…_

“You asked me to rule the galaxy with you, not leave the First Order.”  Rey looked down as she spoke as well. 

“I would have left, if you had asked,” he admitted.  “Not to the Resistance, but elsewhere.  Something new.”  He echoed the words she had said to him just days before.

“Would you have?  Truly?”  Rey felt as if she could reach out and cut the words that hung in the air with a knife.  A weight had settled between them, a weight that had not been there before, no matter the gravity of their conversations.

And she waited for the answer that might shatter whatever tenuous, angry equilibrium they had established.

 

**Part Two: Ben**

Would he have left?  Would he have abandoned the life that he had built for himself, however hollow, in the First Order?  The power, the prestige, the thousands at his beck and call, would he have left all of that behind for her, a scavenger from a remote desert planet? 

He had spoken rashly and with little eloquence in the throne room.  He had not meant to tell her that she was nothing.  That was not entirely true.  But while others may have seen her as nothing, just a lonely child out of her depth, he had seen through that to the power and strength that lay within, untapped.  He knew some had recognized it in her as well: his mother, for one, and that treacherous stormtrooper.  And somewhere along the line, she had become everything to him.

“Yes,” he said.  _Yes, I would have left it.  For you.  I would have left everything behind._

_I would still._

Rey drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them.  She looked so small in his bed, beneath the black satin covers, and so alone. 

“You’re just as miserable there as I am, aren’t you?” she said at last.

He couldn’t deny the truth of her words.  Some of his days had lapsed towards the robotic.  Fulfill his duties, sign the papers, order Hux around and watch the smarmy redhead fume.  Sit in his throne room, discuss plans with his officers, rinse and repeat.  Every day.  Nothing had any meaning for him anymore.  The anger that had been his companion his entire life had fizzled into nothing but ash, and it left him feeling emptier than ever.  His anger, however unpleasant, had been fuel at least, but now he had nothing.

He didn’t suppose it was any secret to her anymore that he hated everything about his life on the _Supremacy_.  But why she should be miserable amongst her compatriots in the Resistance, he didn’t know.  He thought she had everything she wanted.

“I can’t say,” he answered at last.  “I don’t know how miserable you are.”

She rested her cheek on her knee.  “I’ve never felt more alone.” 

He remembered another time when she’d said that very same thing to him.  “You’re not alone.”  He had said those words before too.

“Aren’t I?” she asked.  “I thought that once.”

“I thought you had friends in the Resistance,” he said carefully, hedging around the barb in his heart after her last statement.

“I did.  I do,” she clarified almost angrily.  She glared at him, lips tight and teeth clenched for a moment.  He stared resolutely back until she gave up and slumped into the mattress again.  “They don’t understand.”

“What it’s like to be the most powerful woman in the galaxy?” he completed her unfinished thought.

“Don’t say it like that,” she snapped.  “It’s not true.”

“It is, Rey.”  She cast her eyes somewhere else in the room, anywhere else but at him.  “You have the power of the universe thrumming through your veins.  Of course, they don’t understand.  They cannot understand.”

Her voice shook when she spoke again, “they will.  I’ll just make them understand.”

“They’ll try,” he allowed, leaning towards her with open honesty.  “They’ll dash themselves against a duracrete wall trying to understand the weight on your shoulders.  But they will fail.  Even Leia.  It’s not something they can understand.”

“How do you know?” she threw back at him.  “You don’t know them.  You _left_ them.  Is that it?” she scoffed and the bitterness on her face cut him deep.  “Is that why you left?  Because no one could _understand_ you?  Force, how self-centered are you?”

He tried to ignore the searing pain that dropped its blazing trail into his stomach.  She hadn’t looked at him like that in so long.  It reminded him of a lightsaber through his father’s chest.  But Ben knew better than anyone that hurting people tended to hurt others in turn.  “I left,” he said softly, when the silence had grown thin enough to break.  “Because Luke tried to kill me, as you well know.”

“You would have left anyway,” she snarled, undeterred.

“Perhaps,” he conceded.  “But I meant what I said.  They never understood.”

“They never understood your power?  Too wonderful even for the legendary Luke to handle?” she taunted him to stave off the truth he knew she didn’t want to hear just a moment longer.  He saw threw the bravado that tried to hide the fear in her eyes.

“The war waged over my mind,” he finished.  Her eyes snapped to his.  “It occurred so early and so craftily that Luke never sensed it.  Or, if he did, he put it down to my tendency to the dark side.”

He took a breath.  What he planned to tell her he had never told another living soul.  “Snoke started young.  His whispers embedded themselves in my mind earlier than I can remember.  That moment, in the throne room, that was the first time in my life I felt… _free_.  The first time I was ever alone with my thoughts.  He was always there, twisting, tempting, sliding his talons in deeper and deeper.  I tried to resist.  I pushed back against the call to the darkness.  I thought if I worked a little harder and did better, I would grow to be what my parents and Luke wanted of me.  But I couldn’t.

“It’s not their fault,” he continued.  “I realize that now, without him coloring my thoughts.”  It had taken him a long time to sort out which feelings were his own and which had been twisted by the influence of Snoke.  He still had a long way to go.  “They weren’t prepared to handle a child with darkness too large for his body.  But they gave up too early.”

Rey stared at him.  Sometime in the midst of his speech, which he’d given to the floor rather than her, she had lost the bitterness in her face.  He realized this was the most he had spoken together to her. 

“But I’m not like that,” she said finally.  “Snoke didn’t want me like that.”

“He did,” Ben answered.  “ _Oh_ , he did.  He wanted you furiously, even more than he wanted me, although I was his greatest symbolic victory.  Snoke couldn’t see a strong and powerful thing without wanting to possess it.  But you were stronger or lighter or, I don’t know, braver than me.  He didn’t get to you as easily.”

“And you killed him,” she stated, her eyes bottomless as the universe.  “Is that why?  Because you thought he would turn me like he did you?”

“Not exactly,” he muttered.  He felt his skin crawl with the memory of her screams.  “But I knew he would try to break you.  And he would use me to do it.  I couldn’t watch that again.”

They sat in silence for long moments.  Rey opened her mouth to speak again, but before a single word could escape, she vanished and left nothing behind her but an empty bed and an aching heart.

**Part Three: Ben**

The Force connected them again the next day.  This time, her back faced him.  Her shoulders tensed beneath her vest when she felt his presence loom behind her.  She did not turn around.

“I can’t do this now, Ben,” she said quietly.  “I’m going back.”

He looked at the slope of her shoulders and the lines of her back sadly.  “I know.”

“They’ll understand,” she forced the words from her mouth.  “They have to.  Maz told me I would find a home here.”  She paused.  “Goodbye, Ben.”

As if sensing her reluctance, the Force connection closed with his name still on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They'll get better soon, I promise! Thanks to all those leaving kudos and comments.


	7. "But I know in the end it's killing me"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey tries to fit in to her life on base again.

**Part One: Rey**

Rey landed the Falcon on the rebel base with twin flutters of hope and fear in her chest.  _Leia was right_ , she thought as the ground crew checked her ship for bugs and signaled to her to enter the hangar.  _This is just what I needed.  It was my fault all along.  I cut myself off from my friends._   She smiled to herself as she guided her ship into the hangar.  _If I open up to them, they’ll understand._   A smaller, quieter voice hidden inside her said, _they have to._

Finn was waiting for her when she let down the ramp to the Falcon and her smile grew.  She ran down the ramp and threw her arms around her friend and then Rose in turn, when she came up beside Finn.  “I missed you!” she said and meant it.

“We missed you too, Rey,” Finn said.  “This week went on forever.”

“Tell me everything,” she insisted, linking her arm with Rose’s.

Her elation lasted all the way until she went to the mess to have dinner with her friends.  When she stepped in line, the rebels ahead of her stepped aside and insisted she move up in front of them.  She protested that she would just stay back with her friends until politeness forced her to bow her head and take a tray at the front.  No one resumed their conversations once she had passed.  She could feel their eyes on her. 

Rey took her tray to an empty table and waited for her friends to make their way through the line and get their own trays of food.  They finally made their way over to her.  As they did, she noticed that Poe’s face had gone a vibrant shade of red.  All three were engrossed in their conversation.

“What’s made you so red, Poe?” Rey asked when they reached the table.

“Oh.”  He started a little as if he hadn’t noticed her sitting there and waved her question off.  “Nothing really.”

She looked between the three of them, waiting for someone to fill her in on the conversation.  No one did, just started eating their dinners as normal.  “But you’ve gone all red.”

Finn just shrugged.  “Just talking about Kaydel.  You know, the girl up in command?  Anyway, tell us about the planet you were on, Rey.  I’ve never been there.”

Rey shrugged half-heartedly.  Rose had asked her the same question not an hour ago with Finn right next to her.  “It was a swampy jungle.  I got mud on the Falcon.  What’s there to tell?”  She managed two more bites from her tray before she pushed it away and stood up.  “I’m not that hungry.  I think I’ll head back to my room.  See you later.”

Rose made a half-hearted attempt to convince her to stay, but Rey turned her back on her friends and walked away from the table.  As she left, she thought she heard Rose behind her say, “you know, Poe, I think Kay does like you…”

Rey told herself the whole way back to her room that she was overreacting.  Finn would probably fill her in on the conversation tomorrow, when Poe had gone back to his droids and fighter jets.  She told herself that over and over again until she almost believed it.  She passed groups of rebels in the hallway.  _Hey, that’s the Jedi…I heard she was a scavenger on a desert planet…defeated Kylo Ren in a duel, I hear…_

By the time she reached her room, she couldn’t breathe.  That stupid, humid jungle felt better than this, drowning in a sea of staring eyes and gossiping lips.  Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?  How had she not become an everyday oddity of the Resistance yet?  When would they just get used to her presence?  She knew the answer to that, of course.  As long as the Resistance kept growing, new members trickling in every day, she would never become just another rebel.  They would always eye the lightsaber hanging at her side and the scar she’d gotten fighting the Praetorians.

She threw herself on her bed, but sleep didn’t claim her.  She had to let it go.  _If this is my life now_ , she reasoned, _I have to live with it.  They’ll stop talking eventually.  Maybe if I’m more visible, they won’t care as much._

Yes, that sounded like it would work.  She would just have to be more social, talk more, smile more, act like a normal person instead of the aloof legendary Jedi.  She resolved to start tomorrow with her friends.  Start small and work up to more.

Rey finally fell asleep with the solace that she had a good place to start.

~  ~  ~

Her new plan worked well, at least at first. 

She planned to work on the Falcon the next day.  It always had something that needed done.  Sometimes she found herself blaming Han and his carelessness with the old ship for that and smiled.  Those memories hurt a little less now.  And Chewie had filled her in on how Han had acquired the ship in the first place and trashed it, which differed drastically from Han’s version. 

For the past several months, she had always worked on the Falcon alone or, at most, with Chewie when she needed large loads lifted.  But this time she found Rose in the hangar and headed for the other mechanic.

“Hey, Rose, you busy?”  Rose looked up from a clipboard and shook her head.  “Want to give me a hand on the Falcon?”

Her eyes lit up at once.  “Do you really mean it?  Work on the Falcon?  Force, I’ve always wanted to work on the Falcon.”

Rey grinned.  “Yeah, I could use a hand.”

And that went well.  So well that she found herself wondering why she hadn’t done this earlier.  Rose was an ace mechanic and made some helpful suggestions for keeping the Falcon from breaking so kriffing often.  Rey found herself relaxing under the hull of the ship and even laughing. 

But then she’d needed a wrench from a few feet away and she’d just used the Force to summon it rather than get up to retrieve it.  Rose had stared at her for a long moment.  Rey clutched the wrench to her chest and fought her rising urge to panic.  Finally, the mechanic shook her head.  “Sorry,” she said.  “I just saw Kylo Ren do that once to a blaster bolt.”

Rey excused herself soon after.

The next day she asked Poe to spar with her, for old times.  If four months ago could be counted as old times.  But he winced and shook his head.  “Sorry, Rey.  I don’t think I’ve recovered from the bruises you left on me last time.  It’s just not fair with the Force on your side and all.”

“I won’t use the Force,” she argued back.  “I just want to spar, not practice my saber.”

Poe squinted at her apologetically.  “You…sense stuff or whatever.  Sorry, Rey, I can’t.  There’s no point.  I can’t keep up.  You beat Kylo Ren after all.”

And he excused himself to check on the fighter pilots, leaving her standing in the hallway like an idiot. 

When she didn’t come out to dinner, Finn knocked on her door and dragged her to the cantina, just the two of them.  She sat over the mug of slosh they called alcohol and listened to Finn talk about Rose and the fact that another stormtrooper had shown up on base while she was gone. 

“Finn,” she said once her friend had fallen silent long enough for her to get a word in edgewise.  “Do you ever feel out of place here?”

She fiddled nervously in her lap while she waited for his response.  It wasn’t a topic she breached lightly and not one she would have discussed with Poe or Rose.  They had grown up in the Resistance, living and breathing their hate for the First Order.  But she and Finn had come from outside the fold.  If anyone could understand, she reasoned, Finn could.

But he shook his head.  “No, not really.  Everyone here is great.”  He squinted at her and seemed to really see her for the first time.  “Why?  Is something wrong, Rey?”

“No.”  She waved him and his concern off.  “I’m fine.  Just tired.”

She excused herself soon after.  It was becoming a habit for her.

Back in her room, she stared at the bare expanse of Resistance-issued equipment: a skinny bed with a thin mattress and threadbare blanket, a rickety desk and chair since Leia had classified her as some sort of officer, and a gray rug.  She had added only her staff, two changes of clothes, and the Jedi texts, secreted in a desk drawer.  Her rotten AT-AT, she realized with a pain that crumpled her face, had felt more like home than this.

_You can always look up and see the stars_.  One of the women on Jakku had told her that on a day when she’d gone without a meal for the second day in a row and stared bleakly at the shifting sands.  She had found that to be true.  Her AT-AT had many holes in it, and she could, indeed, look up and see the stars.  She’d dreamed of flying among them one day and now she had. 

But now she looked up and only saw the white plaster of the ceiling, not stars, not the sky.

Rey barely made it to her bed before she crumpled.

**Part Two: Ben**

The shift of the air in the room and the popping of his ears made him turn.  After she had bid him goodbye and gone two days without a Force connection, he had assumed that Rey had resolved to block their connection again.  But he turned to see her lying in his bed again, sideways and awkwardly, with her legs pulled up to her chest.  It took him another heartbeat to grow concerned.  She did not acknowledge him.  She did not turn around.  She did not move.  He questioned whether she even breathed.

“Rey.”  He stood up from his chair and took several steps towards her, hesitated.  It was enough to see that her chest did rise and fall.  Several steps more and he could see her face.  What he found there worried him even more.

Her eyes stared at his empty wall as if they could not see.  Her face bore no emotion, no trace of tears, as if she were a droid with its motor ripped out.  She stared and stared and did not move.

Finally, when he could stand it no longer, he took a risk and laid a hand on her arm.  It was only then that she dragged her eyes away from the wall with great effort and looked at him without even turning her face.

“What happened, Rey?” he asked.  She didn’t yell at him or try to shoot at him, so he left his hand where it lay.

“You were right,” she said finally.  “They don’t understand.  They look at me like I’m a stranger.  Everything I do is foreign and strange and terrifying.”  Her eyes shifted back to the wall.  “I can’t stay here.”

He wanted, desperately, to ask her to join him again.  If he had still been a slave to Snoke and the darkness, he would have seen this as his opportunity to turn her.  But not anymore.  She would find no comfort in the First Order.  Joining the First Order would mean the same thing for her that it had for him so many years before: the loss of some emotions, drowning in others, and a deep, unquenchable anger. 

“Then, don’t,” he said as if any of this were easy. 

She huffed a breath that might have been the early stages of a laugh.  “Where would I go?  I have nothing left, nobody to turn to, nowhere to go.”

Her words haunted him with the ghost of his own.  Many words sat on his tongue, but he settled for the simplest and most familiar of them.  “You’re not alone.”

Her eyes shifted to his and held them as she assessed his unspoken words.  _You have me.  You can turn to me._   “I won’t join the First Order,” she said at last as if that were even on his mind.

“I won’t ask you to,” he answered.

“What, then?  If not the First Order, then…what?”

Truth be told, he had no plans and no prospects outside of leaving both these broken lives behind.  So, he echoed the words she’d said to him before.

“Something new.”

“Something new,” she repeated, turning the words over on her tongue.  She shifted until she sat upright on the edge of his bed, lifting his hand from her arm in the process.  “I think…”  She swallowed.  “I think, maybe, I would like to figure out what that is.”

She held his eyes for a long minute of silence.  “I’m no Jedi, Ben.  They call me one, but I’m not.  I read the Jedi texts and I’m nothing like them.”

He couldn’t help the word that escaped his lips: “Good.”  Her eyebrows shot up.  “I’m not either.”

“But you’re not a Sith.  That’s what they were called, right?”  He nodded.  “You’re not a Sith, either.  I’m even sure you’re on the dark side anymore.”

“I don’t think I am,” he admitted.  He had not even managed to admit that much to himself.

“So, if I’m no Jedi and you’re no Sith, then what are we?” she asked, her shoulders slumping.

He didn’t have an answer to that question.  “We’ll figure it out.”

Her hazel eyes met his.  “I think I would like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, this is one of my favorite chapters. Thanks to all who are following this story!


	8. "With my heart in my hands, I am ready again"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something new...not Jedi, not Sith...

**Part One: Ben**

The Rey that appeared suddenly in his chambers, a book clutched in her white-knuckled hands, was the opposite of the Rey that had vanished leaving a warm place on the edge of his bed.  She jumped and took a step forward as soon as she materialized in the center of his room.  He found himself grateful that he had just sent his assistant out, because he didn’t think he could contain himself with her in the room.

“It worked!” she gasped. 

“What did?” he stood too, just to match her curious energy.  Force, was she always this _alive_?  He could get used to having her vivacity around him.

“I tried to reach you through the Force, and it worked!” she squeaked.  His heart did a funny thing in his chest.  She had tried to reach him.  She had reached out to him with the Force and was _happy_ about the connection. 

“Are you alright?” he asked at once.  He glanced at the book in her hands and received another shock as he recognized it as one of the ancient Jedi texts.

“What? Oh, yes, of course.”  She nodded and opened the book with care for its fragile pages.  He was tempted to tell her that the kriffing thing was near indestructible.  A kind of bitterness dwelled with that book and the others like it.  How many hours had he wasted pouring over those foreign words?  None of it made him a better Jedi.  Rey seemed to have found something that he had missed along the way, though.  “I…I found something here,” she said, sudden nervousness shaking her voice.

“What did you find?” he prompted, because he was curious and to remind her that he wanted to hear what she had to say.  Desperately.

“I was reading about the Jedi Order again and the Sith,” she said, and he felt his heart sink.  “Because I was sure that there must have been something _more._   There had to be some Jedi or Force-users, whatever you want to call them, that just didn’t _fit._   And I realized that there is another option.  I must have skimmed over it when I read them before.”

He leaned forward, hanging on her every word.  “The Jedi, the Sith,” she continued.  “And the Grey Jedi.  Not light or dark, not good or evil, but Grey.  Listen: _there is no Dark side, nor a Light side, there is only the Force.  Grey Jedi do what they must to keep the balance.  The balance is what keeps them together.  There is no good without evil but evil must not be allowed to flourish.  There is passion, yet serenity.  There is emotion, yet peace.  Chaos, yet order.  The Grey Jedi are guardians of balance.  There is only the Force._ ”  Her blazing eyes met his.  “Is this the answer?  Is this us?”

“Grey Jedi,” he turned the words over on his tongue.  He liked the way they tasted.  Not light, not dark, but something in between, the preservers of balance.  The guardians of balance for the Universe.  Not constricted like the Jedi but not uncontrolled like the Sith.  Something new and old at the same time.  “Yes.  Yes, Rey.”

Her eyes stared at him with so much _hope_.  That foreign emotion bubbled up in him for the first time in years.  Real, tangible hope.  She closed the book carefully and took a hesitant step closer to him. 

“Ben, I…I’m ready.  I’m ready to start over somewhere new.”  Her knuckles went white around the spine of the book.  “Are you?”

Like she had before, so many months before, when they hadn’t yet broken, she stretched her hand out to him.  Or rather like he had once, when he’d asked her to join him.  An offer.  And a plea in her eyes.

And just as he had done before, he pulled the glove from his hand and met hers halfway, sliding his palm over hers.  No visions met their eyes this time, but Rey’s fingers curled around the edges of his palm. 

And they made their plans.

**Part Two: Rey**

Rey took several deep breaths and stood in front of the door for a minute too long before she gathered the courage to open it.  She found the usual quiet business of command lit by the dim glow cast by the holoscreens around the room.  Leia stood in the middle of it all like a queen gazing down at her kingdom.  Except instead of a patchwork of cities and fields spread before her, her eyes grazed over a map of the Ileenium System.  She looked up when Rey’s footsteps stopped behind her.

“Let’s go to my office,” Leia said without turning.  “I can tell this is something better said in private and where I can sit down.”

Rey didn’t argue with that, just followed Leia to her office off the side of the command center.  The general gave her a weary smile and closed the door behind them, leaving her face to face with everything she had to confess.  Leia held up a finger and eased herself into a chair, setting her cane aside and gesturing to the chair opposite her.  As she did, the general melted away and Rey saw only her mentor and hero, who had become a friend.

“You know,” Leia said, leaning back in her chair.  “Sometimes you remind me of Luke, sometimes you remind me of Han, but mostly you remind me of what little I knew of my mother.”

Rey’s brows creased.  The train of Leia’s conversation momentarily distracted her from the pressure of her thoughts.  Of all the things she had expected the general to say, this didn’t rank among them. 

Leia nodded, a wistful look in her eye.  “I never knew her, of course.  My birth mother, that is.  Part of me always searched for her, even though I had a perfectly wonderful adoptive mother.  I wonder if they tell stories about her anymore.  Padme Amidala.”

She recognized the name.  Everyone did, she imagined.  When she was young and still learning how to scavenge with some of the older women who had lost their former youthfulness, they had told her stories about Padme Amidala and the love she had for Anakin Skywalker, the love that had borne Leia and Luke.  And Anakin had left her for the dark side.  Or perhaps, as some told it, he had lost himself while trying to save her.  Many said their love was their destruction.  Rey hadn’t liked that story much.

“My mother was a queen before she was a senator.  You have her fierceness and her softness.”  Leia chuckled softly.  “She never let anyone get away with any shit.  Not even the emperor himself.”

Rey found herself smiling ever so slightly at the comparison.  Leia went on, “you remind me of Luke when you get that faraway look in your eye.  You remind me of Han when you beat Poe at his own games or have oil on your jumpsuit from fixing the Falcon.  But you remind me of what I know of her most of all.  But you didn’t come here to listen to an old woman reminisce.  I am ready to listen to whatever you have to tell me.”

Leia settled further in her chair and Rey could glimpse echoes of the queen on her throne.  If what she had said was true, then Leia had two powerful queens for mothers.  It made sense.  And maybe Rey had a bit of those women too.

And so, she looked into Leia’s dark eyes and said, “I’m leaving the Resistance.”

Leia nodded as if she had expected those words to leave her mouth.  “Will you tell me why or claim mysterious Jedi business?”

Her eyes sparkled with mischief, but Rey sensed that Leia would indeed allow her to claim ‘mysterious Jedi business’ if she needed to.  As, she assumed, Luke once had done. 

“I think I need to.  I’ve tried to fit in here, but I…can’t.  I am no rebel.  I’m no Jedi.  I can’t be the Jedi hero of the Resistance,” Rey answered, stumbling over her words to explain.

Leia tilted her head at her.  “You know, I hope, that I would never force such a thing on you.”

“I don’t think you can help it,” Rey said a little desperately.  “People here see me as that whether I want them to, or you want them to, or anyone wants them to or not.”

“Have you considered that you’ve _earned_ that reputation from them?”

“No.”  Rey shook her head.  “I’m no Jedi.  I can’t be Luke, and everyone looks at me like I’m the next great Jedi here to save the Resistance.  But I’m not a Jedi, Leia.”

The general nodded slowly.  “I’ll admit that I expected you to leave, but I thought it would be to go off and form a new Jedi Order.  But if you’re not a Jedi, what then?  You’re too great to go off to the edge of the universe and rot on some force-forsaken island like Luke did.”

Rey bit her lip and considered a moment before diving in.  “I won’t be forming a Jedi Order, but I will be forming a new order of sorts…a Grey Order.”

Leia squinted, thinking through her words.  “Grey?  I think I heard that somewhere in my admittedly very brief foray into the force.”

“The Grey Order, the preservers of balance.  Not Jedi, but not Sith either.  Something in between, the guardians of balance in the universe,” Rey explained.

Leia nodded.  “The Force hasn’t found itself in balance in a very long time, despite what Luke liked to think.  But alone?  We could help you here.  I would support your efforts.”

Rey thought for long moments before she answered finally.  “I won’t be alone.”  Leia watched her and waited for her to explain.  “Leia, there’s something else I haven’t told you.”  The general nodded for her to go on.  “I’ve been communicating with Ben.”

Several things happened on Leia’s face all at once.  Her eyebrows shot up, her eyes softened to the point of tears, and her lips pulled down into a frown.  She looked down at the cane she gripped in a fist.  “Ben is gone.  He has been for many years.”

“No,” Rey said as gently as she could.  “Ben isn’t gone.  There’s still conflict in him, there always has been.”  She chose her next words carefully.  “I know how much harm he has done.  But I swear to you that he is not lost.”

Leia dragged her eyes up to meet Rey’s, something like hope brimming in them for the first time in months.  “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.  Without any doubt.”  She reached out and gripped the woman’s hand in her own.  “Ben is not lost.”

“How do you know?” Leia asked, her hand shaking beneath Rey’s own.  “How have you been communicating with him?”

“The Force connected us.  It has been for months now,” Rey answered honestly.  It felt good to get the truth out in the open, like a deep breath of air she’d been holding in for too long.  But she watched the other woman’s face carefully.

“Since when? Before Crait?”  Rey nodded.  “When?”

“It first happened on Ahch-To shortly after I arrived.  The connections continued often after that,” Rey answered, tracking every movement of Leia’s face.  After the initial relief, it almost felt wrong to speak about this, as if it should have just been kept private between her and Ben.  But she didn’t see any other way to convince Leia and the general was bound to find out that Ben had joined her eventually.

Leia scrutinized her.  “Is this why you went to the Supremacy?”

Rey nodded, swallowing hard.  Shame still bubbled to the surface when she thought about that decision.  How foolish she’d been.  She could have ruined everything by trusting in Ben to turn.  But in the end, she reasoned again as she had so many times before, she had been right, in a way.  Ben _had_ turned…against Snoke.  He just hadn’t completed her vision by joining her.  Perhaps, after all, her vision had held more distance between those events than she’d previously thought.

“Snoke told us that he had been the ones to bridge our minds.  I had thought that to be true, but the Force connected us again as we left Crait and has several times since then, although it hasn’t been as frequent.  I…”  She swallowed again.  “Cut myself off from the Force as much as I could to avoid it.”

Leia cocked her head at her.  “What happened on the _Supremacy_?”

Rey broke their shared gaze then and looked down at her hands.  They had come to the part of the story she didn’t want to tell.  She had hope that Ben truly would turn now…grey, if not Jedi, but to tell Leia that he had been ready to let her, and the entire Resistance die was too much. 

“Snoke tortured me,” she admitted.  “Tried to get Skywalker’s location from me.  I couldn’t resist him.  And he ordered Ben to kill me.”  Leia waited in silence for her to finish.  “Everyone assumed that I somehow killed Snoke.  It was Ben who killed Snoke, not me.”

Leia sat back in her chair, exhaling heavily.  “Why?  Why did he kill Snoke?  To take power?”

Rey shook her head at once.  “I thought that for a while, but I don’t think that’s it.  We fought the praetorian guards back to back…and he asked me to join him.  But I couldn’t do it.  I think he killed him because he couldn’t stand it anymore.  Snoke tortured him too and, I suppose, when Snoke tortured me that was his breaking point.”

Ben’s mother watched her with tears in her eyes.  “How did you escape, if you didn’t join him?  He let you go?”

“No.  No, I think he was desperate for me to stay.  I tried to take Luke’s lightsaber back and it split, knocked us both unconscious.  I woke up first and took an escape pod back to the Falcon.  I don’t know how he explained the destruction.”

“Even after all of this, you still trust him?” Leia asked.  She could hear the doubt in her voice.

Rey chewed on her lip for a moment.  “It’s hard to explain.  But the short answer is yes, I do.  The Force is drawing us together for a reason.  And I think neither of us has found our place yet.”

Leia contemplated her words for a long moment.  Finally, she nodded.  “What do you need from me?  You’ll have whatever it is.”

Rey shook her head.  “Only a ship and the few things I’ve collected while here.  A blaster, maybe.  We’ll figure out everything else.  Just give me whatever ship you’re not using.  I can fix it up.”

But Leia shook her head.  “You’ll take the Falcon,” she said with finality and rose from her chair with a heavy sigh.

Rey shot to her feet, her hand already reaching to stop Leia.  “No!  I didn’t mean the Falcon.  Some rust bucket in the back of the hangar.”

“The Falcon is no rust bucket,” Leia said.  “Well, I suppose it is in a way.  But you take good care of her and Han left her to you.  You’ll take the Falcon.  I only ask that you offer to take Chewie with you.  He likes that old ship.”

“But Leia…” Rey hesitated.  “The Falcon’s all you have left of Han.  I don’t want to take that from you.”

Leia shook her head again, once and with finality.  “The Falcon is not all I have left of Han.  I have you, the brilliant mechanic with a heart of gold.  I have Poe, the best pilot in the galaxy.  I have my memories, which serve me infinitely better than the Falcon.  And, if what you tell me is true, there may yet be hope that the biggest piece of Han may return.  My son.  So, you’ll take the Falcon and you won’t feel guilty about it.”

Rey had no argument left to make.  “Just, please, let me tell Poe and Finn and Rose on my own.”

The general nodded her agreement.  “You do what you need to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter to go! I am working on a sequel to this because I don't think I've quite finished with this story line yet. If there's any interest at all in that, I'll post it as I have it finished. Thank you to all who have read so far! This chapter was tough for me to write so I hope you enjoyed it.


	9. "I am a broken man, I am"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Rey embark on their next journey.

**Part One: Rey**

In the end, Rey flew away from the rebel base alone in the Falcon.  It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, even worse than telling Leia, to admit to her friends that she planned to leave them.  They had a thousand arguments, a thousand protests, but had eventually realized that they could not talk her out of leaving or talk her into allowing one of them to come with her.  She had not told them about Ben and had sworn Leia to secrecy.  Better to let the whole thing pan out before anyone knew where the soon-to-be-former Supreme Leader now stayed.

A part of her remained in the rebel base, but she felt in her bones that she had done the right thing.  She had not dared to reopen the connection with Ben.  The situation felt too tenuous and she, to her shame, was afraid that he would tell her he had changed his mind after she had made the irrevocable step.

They had sent each other messages instead, short blips through the Force to coordinate.  She would meet him on Takodana, where they would hopefully consult Maz Kanata for information without being detected by anyone who might have an interest in two runaway Force users.  Leia herself had suggested Maz.  They had decided to seek one of the earliest temples and a place of refuge for the Grey Order.  Rey had no doubt that it would be empty, but it would be a starting point at least.  And Maz, with her long life and endless knowledge, had the best chance of knowing where that temple might be.

If she didn’t shoot Ben on the spot.

And so, Rey charted a course for Takodana to Maz’s rebuilt stronghold and jumped to lightspeed.  Then she had nothing left to do but wait.  Her leg jumped as she leaned back in her seat and tried her hardest to think of anything besides her anxiety over what was to come.  She considered heading back to the cabin to try to get some rest on the way, but she didn’t think sleep would come.

Instead, she watched the universe blur past her window and clenched the fabric of her pants in her fists.  Rey forced herself to contemplate how she would proceed if Ben didn’t show up.  The rebel base remained an option, Leia had made that clear, but she didn’t know if she could gather the shreds of her pride to limp back to the rebellion she had abandoned.  She could continue on, following Maz’s directions wherever they led and building her new order from the ground up on her own.  The prospect sounded bleak, but she told herself that she could do it alone.  She had survived on Jakku for so long without help.

And then there was the remote possibility that Ben not only didn’t show up but sent First Order troops to apprehend her.  Rey had to admit that she didn’t have a clue what she would do if that happened.  Get in the Falcon and try to run, probably.

Only when the Falcon shuddered around her and the controls beeped did she realize that she had dozed off in the captain’s seat anyway.  Shaking the sleep from her eyes, she sat up and grabbed the controls to pull the ship out of lightspeed.  The green speckled planet came into view straight ahead.  Rey leaned forward in her seat to get a better look.

She remembered the first time she had arrived on Takodana with Han and Chewie.  The Falcon had brought her here then, too.  Her heart ached as she remembered.  She looked over to the empty seat beside her.  Takodana had been like something out of a fairy tale to her then and it still seemed so now.  After her life on sand-washed Jakku, Takodana had been heaven.  So much water and green.

How odd that she would return to the place where Kylo Ren had captured her now to reunite with him.

Rey landed at one of the farthest landing points away from Maz’s castle.  She resolved then and there to never anger Maz.  When the First Order had attacked, the castle had crumbled into nothing.  A towering fortress stood in its place, already built despite the short time since the attack.  Maz had connections, Rey knew, but she wondered what strings she could have possibly pulled to make this a reality.  The waterhole functioned fully again.

The Falcon touched down on the landing pad.  The Force and the bond had both been silent since her departure.  She reached through it now – something she had not known to even be possible just weeks ago – and felt Ben’s presence there.  She sent a short message down the bond to let him know that she had arrived on Takodana.  They had decided to meet aboard the Falcon.  Rey had to admit that it was still mostly because she didn’t feel comfortable setting foot on a First Order ship blind.  Ben had accepted the request without question.

No telling how long it would take for him to arrive.  Rey unlocked the hatch so it could be opened from the outside and went about her business locking down the Falcon and following her landing protocols. 

The hatch hissed as it descended.

Rey turned when she heard the clang of footsteps stop at the top of the ramp. 

Ben stood at the entrance to the Falcon, his dark eyes locked on her. 

She didn’t know what she expected the first time she saw him again, but he looked…different.  Part of it could be chalked up to the warm sunlight filtering through the open door.  She had never seen him in sunlight before.  The thought made her strangely sad.  But it was more than that.  He had shed the black uniform he’d worn as Kylo Ren…and something of the man he’d been had left his face too.  Instead, he wore black pants and a simple gray tunic crossed by a black vest.  His signature color remained, but it came off softer somehow.  Or maybe that was the expression on his face.

For since his eyes had landed on her, he had not turned them away.  He looked at her like she had just cast the only life preserver to a drowning man.  Rey stood stunned.  They had connected through the Force many times and it had always seemed like he stood in the room with her, but actually having him in the room with her was a different matter entirely.  The air hung between them as electric as in the throne room.

“Ben,” she breathed.

“Rey.” 

**Part Two: Ben**

Her name tasted like a prayer on his tongue.  Ben watched her as she took slow steps towards him, as if he may decide to bolt down the ramp if she made too swift a motion.  Little did she know, his feet had grown roots.  He couldn’t have bolted if he’d wanted to.  He most certainly did not.  She stopped when she stood close enough that she had to tilt her head up to see him properly. 

“I thought maybe you would change your mind,” Rey said.

He shook his head, trying to will his tongue to work with the time he bought himself.  “Never.”

She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice.  Did it remind her of the voice that spilled from his mask?  How did it affect her?  The air thrummed around them as if it lived.  Perhaps it was the Force curling around them, finally satisfied with its work.

Rey took a deep breath and reached for his hand.  He met hers halfway in a clash of skin on skin.  He still felt oddly bare without his gloves, but it was a feeling he could get used to quickly if it meant having Rey’s hand tucked in his.  She smiled a little when he didn’t pull away.

“How did you do it?” she whispered.  Their voices stayed barely loud enough to pass between them.  He felt as if anything louder would break the reverent peace around them.  He would wake up on the First Order ship again and find it all a dream.  Rey would still be drifting out in the universe somewhere disconnecting herself from the Force.  He squeezed her hand once to reassure himself that it was not a dream.

“A little too easily.  I stole a ship and took off in the middle of the night.  No one questioned it.  I imagine it’ll take them a little bit to figure out I’m not coming back.  Although, Hux may have assumed command the minute my ship jumped to lightspeed.”

Rey shuddered at the sound of the First Order commander’s name.  “We’ll have to discuss what we should do about _him_.”

Ben couldn’t argue with her there.  “First thing’s first…why are we here again?”

Her hand tightened around his.  She seemed to sense his discomfort before he had even made an outward sign of it.  Or maybe he had become easier to read in the months without his mask.  That force-forsaken mask.  How had he ever thought that was a good idea?

“Maz knows just about everything,” Rey explained, her hazel eyes trained on his every twitch and wince.  “And she’s Force-sensitive.  If anyone knows where a Grey Jedi temple is, she will.  I can’t think of another way to find out.  Can you?”

He shook his head.  Ever since she had suggested going to Takodana, he had wracked his brain trying to think of another way that wouldn’t involve him coming face to face with his past so soon.  He had come up empty.  “She also knew my father,” he forced himself to voice the thing plaguing his mind.

Rey’s eyes softened, her mouth turned down.  “I know.  I came here with him.”  That hurt even worse.  “But Ben,” she continued, just as softly.  “You’re going to have to face that sometime.  Maz is many things, but I’ve come to believe that understanding is one of them.  We can try.”

Try.  Yes, he could do that.  Luke had always reminded him of Yoda’s old adage whenever Ben complained that he was trying… _do or do not, there is no try_.  He had always thought that a load of shit.  Sure, on one hand it sounded right.  But there was a lot to be said for trying.  Sometimes, trying was the first step to actually doing.  So, he nodded.

Rey gave him a lovely smile, the kind she had never bestowed upon him before.  He thought that he would try five hundred times and more if it would make her give him that smile again.  She turned and led him to the ramp without retracting her hand.  He found himself grateful for that.  It kept him grounded.

“To be honest,” Rey added.  “I think she’ll be more upset that we didn’t bring Chewie along.  She has this idea that he’s her boyfriend.  I don’t recommend trying to dissuade her of that notion.”

For the first time in a long time, Ben huffed something that could have been mistaken for a laugh.  Rey gave him that smile again.

He did not feel like laughing once they got inside the castle.  Meetings took place all throughout the old watering hole and they got spare few glances.  It was clear from Rey’s hand tightening on his that this was the part she’d been dreading: that someone would recognize them.  Or, probably, that someone would recognize _him_ as the new Supreme Leader of the First Order and decide that it was high time he be put down.  She kept her shoulders relaxed, though.

At first glance, they found many people packed into Maz’s watering hole, but not Maz herself.  They stepped up to the bar to be less conspicuous.  Everyone continued about their business, but it certainly would have attracted attention for them to stand by the door.  All species came and went with food and supplies and mysterious crates.  Maz tended to not ask too many questions.  He knew from experience.  Han had brought him to Takodana only once when he was still very young, before he’d begun his training with Luke.

Rey summoned confidence he didn’t feel and stepped up to the bar.  “Excuse me, I need to speak with Maz.”

The bartender grunted and continued scrubbing out a dirty glass with a dirtier dish rag.  “You and everyone else, honey.”

Rey tried again.  “Please, it’s urgent.  We’re old friends.”  The bartender still had not looked up.  Rey dropped her voice so the few sitting a few seats down couldn’t overhear.  “Leia Organa sent us.”

That caught the bartender’s attention.  He nodded and sauntered off into a back room.  Rey visibly relaxed and shot him a hopeful glance.  A few seconds later, they could hear Maz’s voice drifting through the halls in the back.  The short, orange woman followed the sound a moment later, readjusting the enormous spectacles on her face as she went.

“Did Organa send Dameron again?  I’ve had too many flyboys in here this week!”  She stopped short when she caught sight of them standing at the bar.  “You are not Dameron.  What do you think you’re doing?  Get back here before someone sees you!”  Rey winced as if chastised by the ancient woman and ducked her head as she followed.

Ben thought to himself that Maz had probably attracted more attention with that outburst than they had since they entered but dutifully followed a step behind Rey.  Maz led them through a rabbit’s warren and emerged into something resembling an office.  Except this room just held a table.  He figured that was the closest Maz ever came to an office.

“You have so much explaining to do, Rey from Jakku,” Maz chided her.  To his surprise, Rey dropped her eyes to the floor and colored a little.  Did the woman even realize who he was?  “And you,” she said, turning her attention to him and answering the question.  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you’ve done.  I should shoot you and string you from the highest turret.”

Rey’s hackles rose at once, and she did the last thing he had expected: she stepped in front of him.  As if the little, orange woman was a threat and would have to go through her first.  Ben felt a surge of warmth that left him (embarrassingly) on the verge of tears.  “If that’s how it’s going to be, Maz,” Rey’s voice was low but steady.  “We’ll leave now.”

Maz looked between them and something like understanding dawned on her face.  “So, that’s how it is, huh?  Calm down, child.  Sit.  I said, sit!  And tell me why you’ve come.”

Rey glanced back at him before she sat on the edge of the chair Maz had indicated.  “We need your help, Maz.”

“Everyone needs my help,” Maz interrupted.  “But before we get to why you’ve come, tell me why you brought _him_ here.”

Ben flinched.  So far, it had all gone better than he’d expected.  Much better.  From what he remembered of Maz and the stories he’d been told over the years, he’d half-expected her to shoot him on the spot and calmly talk to Rey across his dead body.  But her tone made him feel ten years younger.

“Ben and I have…left,” Rey struggled to explain.

Maz adjusted her enormous lenses.  “ _Left_?  Are you telling me you left the Resistance, Rey from Jakku?”  The pirate queen shook her head.  “Perhaps I could believe that.  But _that_ is not Ben Solo.  _That_ is the Supreme Leader.”

“Not anymore,” Ben answered before Rey could say anything.  Both women turned their eyes on him, one soft, the other sharp.  “And I’m trying to be Ben Solo again.”

Maz scrutinized him for a moment and turned back to Rey as if she hadn’t quite decided if she wanted to stoop so low as to acknowledge his existence.  “You convinced the Supreme Leader to defect from the First Order?”

“Ben made his own decisions,” Rey said at the same time as Ben said, “yes.”

“I can understand why someone would want to leave that place.  Why _he_ would walk away from all that power, we’ll get there in a moment.  But why did _you_ leave, Rey from Jakku?”  Maz adjusted her lenses again.  “The last time I saw you, I saw a forgotten child looking for belonging.  That’s not what I see now.”

“I tried to be a part of the Resistance,” Rey answered.  Ben pricked up his ears.  He had heard parts of this story, but he had a feeling that what she would confess to Maz would be different that what she’d revealed to him.  “I thought a lot about what you told me, that the belonging I sought was ahead of me.  I thought you meant the Resistance.  And I _tried_ , Maz, but I didn’t belong there.  They stared at me like a myth or a legend or a…hero.”  She looked down at her hands and Ben had to resist the urge to wrap his arms around her.  “I’m not a Jedi.”

“No,” Maz said quietly.  Her eyes had softened as Rey spoke.  “The Jedi are dead.  Part of me thinks they should be.”  She turned her dark eyes on Ben, who flinched under her gaze.  “You never could have been a Jedi either, Solo.”  Her words, for once, were not harsh.  “Your father was reckless, your mother was angry, both were passionate.  And you were so desperate to please them both.”  She looked down and shook her head.  “I tried to warn them not to burden you with the Skywalker legacy, but Luke saw your strength and tried to bring you into the fold.  He had such a fear, Skywalker, of anything too different.  He thought he had to remake the Jedi Order.”

“Snoke wanted me from the start,” Ben broke in when he couldn’t help himself anymore.  Rey’s hand settled on his shoulder, his back, stroking soothing circles.  “I didn’t…I tried to resist.”

But, in the end, what had his _trying_ gotten him?  Nothing.  Maybe Yoda did know a thing or two after all.  Maz nodded sadly.  “Yes, he did.  It’s not all your fault, child, but you will have to deal with the consequences of what you’ve done.”  He nodded.  Maz turned back to Rey.  “What are you looking for, then?”

“We’re founding a new order.  The Grey Order.  I read about the Grey Jedi in the ancient texts and we’re looking for one of their old temples somewhere remote where we can build,” Rey explained, keeping her hand where it rested on his shoulder.  “And heal.”

Maz gave her a small, tired smile.  “From the ashes, rebirth.  Yes, I can help you.”  She hopped down off her chair and snatched a holo-projector from across the room.  It expanded into a map of a quadrant.  “There were many groups that were called Grey by the Jedi Council, but few of them belonged to any kind of Grey Order.  There were a few temples were Force-practitioners trained under Grey masters and called themselves the Grey Order.”  She zoomed in on the Both system in the mid-rim.  “Last I heard, the temple in the mountains of the planet Bothawui still stands mostly intact.  That is your best hope of finding the temple you seek.”

“A temple has gone so long undiscovered on Bothawui?” Ben asked.

“Few of the locals venture into the mountains anymore since the last ice age.  It is possible that it has been found, but unlikely that I would not have heard if it is common knowledge,” Maz answered.

Ben shook his head.  “The First Order doesn’t know about it.  I’m sure.”

Both Rey and Maz seemed to accept that.  “You must be careful when landing on Bothawui.  Trade in the mid-rim is not what it used to be, but the hyperspace lanes are still well-used and many land on Bothawui to rest and refuel.  You’ll need to find a landing spot in the mountains themselves if you hope to reach the temple.”

They left Maz’s castle with coordinates, one less ship, and hope.  Rey and Ben stepped aboard the Falcon again, and he had his first chance to look around properly.  His shoes clanged a little over the compartments in the floor that his father had used to smuggle goods and he had used to play hide-and-seek.  He passed the small bed tucked into an alcove where he used to sleep.  When they reached the cockpit, Rey took the captain’s seat where his dad used to sit.  He remembered Han there, teaching him how to fly.  She must have noticed his silence and unspoken pain, because she turned back to him with hesitation on her face.

“I’m sorry, do you want to sit…”

He shook his head before she could finish.  “It’s your ship now.”

Rey rose anyway and stood in front of him, her shaking hands on his shoulders.  How could she touch him so easily after everything he’d done?  “Ben, if this is too uncomfortable for you, I’m sure we could trade with Maz for a different ship.  I would trust her to see the Falcon back to Leia.”

But he shook his head.  He would have to get used to some things being uncomfortable.  He took the chair beside hers, the one where Chewie used to let him sit on his lap, the one he used when he learned how to fly.  Rey reached across the space between them and squeezed his hand, offering him a small, watery smile.

“To Bothawui?” she asked.

“To Bothawui,” he answered.

Ben and Rey guided the Falcon through Takodana’s atmosphere together and charted a course to their new home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the great responses to this piece! I'm glad a few people enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I will be posting a sequel to this one as soon as I get a few chapters done and polished. I can't guarantee when that will be, but keep a look out. It'll happen soon, hopefully in the next week or two.


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